This thesis sets out to illustrate how the paratext can be used as narrative strategy for accessibility in selected Afrikaans children’s and youth fiction. Central to this study is the accessibility of the message in the paratextual and narrative communication situation. In this regard, the central research question is as follows: how can the paratext be used as a narrative strategy to make children’s and youth literature more accessible for young readers?
Gérard Genette’s work on the paratext (1997a) and narratology (1983, 1990) serves as the theoretical basis for this study’s conceptual framework, along with the work of Mieke Bal (1991, 2009). In order to define accessibility in terms of the primary target audience, reference is also made to Jauss’s (1982) reception theory.
Within the context of this conceptual framework, focus is placed on the receivers, senders and message of the paratextual and narrative communication situation. The receivers are the readers of the paratext as narrative strategy for accessibility and are discussed as the primary, twofold and dual target audiences. The senders are the different writers involved in the creation and implementation of the paratext as narrative strategy for accessibility. Here a distinction is made between the primary writer, the second writer and the secondary writer. Lastly, the message is discussed as it relates to the visual paratext and textual paratext.
Through the conceptual framework of this study, along with the different role players and messages of the paratext as narrative strategy for accessibility, this study shows how the paratext as narrative strategy can be used to make children’s and youth literature more accessible for especially the primary target audience.

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